Unveiling Perspectives and Insights: A Survey of Environmental and Natural Resource Sociologists and Social Scientists

Abstract Existing literature on the intersection of environmental sociology (ES) and natural resource sociology (NRS) suggests that a better understanding of the diverse perceptions, experiences, and practices of individual researchers in these subfields are informative in understanding the trajectory of environmental and natural resource sociologies including where more convergence might occur. We present the descriptive results of an online survey of members of relevant domestic and international professional societies or networks to gauge scholars’ perspectives on these two subdisciplines of sociological studies of society–environment relationships. Our results show that while some distinctions persist in levels of analysis and geographic foci, several common assumptions, such as stark differences in theoretical and interdisciplinary orientations of the two subfields, are not as prevalent as widely assumed. We hope this effort to map out individual scholars’ perspectives on ES and NRS can stimulate further thoughts and interactions among colleagues of all persuasions.

; others see such distinctions as modest or unuseful to focus on (Freudenburg 2002;Rosa and Machlis 2002); and yet others contend that more bridging could strengthen both (Krannich, et al. 2020;Qin and Flint 2010;Qin et al. 2018;Ulrich-Schad and Givens 2020).Dialogue about this topic has included organized sessions at the 2000 International Symposium for Society and Resource Management in Bellingham, Washington, United States (U.S.); a special issue in 2002 in the Society & Natural Resources journal on "Environmental Sociology and the Sociology of Natural Resources" (Volume 15, Issue 3); an organized session titled "50 Years of Environmental and Natural Resource Sociology" at the 2015 Rural Sociological Society (RSS) Meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.; and, most recently, a special collection in Society & Natural Resources featuring a bibliometric analysis of environmental and natural resource sociology publications by Qin et al. (2020) as well as subsequent commentaries on the piece (Krannich, et al. 2020; Ulrich-Schad and Givens 2020; Zhang et al. 2020;Zinda 2020) and follow-up studies (Qin et al. 2023a;Qin et al. 2023b).
Aiming for a "forest-scale" view of environmental and resource sociology, Qin et al. (2020) found that while there were two distinct scholarly networks with regards to publishing, the ES and NRS subfields were also "not operating in isolation from one another" (14).Ulrich-Schad and Givens (2020) provided a glimpse into how a small sample of individual scholars in the two subfields identified themselves, were trained and mentored, and saw the future of the two subdisciplines.Still, a broader and deeper understanding of the perspectives of individual researchers-or seeing the trees for the forest-is needed to get a better pulse on the trajectory of environmental and natural resource sociologies or social sciences, including where more convergence might occur and has already been occurring (Krannich, et al. 2020).Using data from an online survey distributed during the summer of 2022 via relevant academic listservs and forums, we examine the diverse perceptions, experiences, and practices of practitioners in environmental and natural resource sociologies as well as related areas of study.This study builds upon exploratory work by Ulrich-Schad and Givens (2020) and adds to a relatively small number of recent empirical studies analyzing a predominantly conceptual issue that emerged in the early 2000s.Additionally, we provide some further depth to the analysis by examining ES and NRS practitioners' distinctions (or the lack thereof) in gender, institution types, career stages, and countries of residence.In doing so, we seek to answer the following research questions: 1. How do scholars in ES, NRS, and related fields identify themselves by discipline, how stable are these identities, and how does their identification relate to their training and country of origin? 2. What are the similarities and differences between ES and NRS sociologists in terms of their personal characteristics and research practices?3. What are individual scholars' perspectives on ES-NRS relationships?And how do these vary based on their subfield identification?

Methods
We sent a short, voluntary, self-administered online Qualtrics survey to graduate students, academics, and professionals who were members of American, Chinese, and international professional societies or networks related to ES and/or NRS, including: The survey was distributed via the above channels, mostly in June of 2022.It was designed to collect information about respondents' professional backgrounds, research practices, disciplinary identities, and perspectives on the ES-NRS dialogue. 1Requests to complete the questionnaire were sent out three times by various coauthors.We also reached out directly to editors and board members of Society & Natural Resources and Environmental Sociology as well as those in our own research and professional networks to further encourage participation.The final dataset included 631 responses: 590 that were complete and 41 usable incompletes (i.e., progress � 55%).While not a probability sample, and limited to those we reached through our networks, we were impressed with the number of colleagues who participated in our survey.In this brief article, we present mostly descriptive statistics highlighting the characteristics of these scholars and some further analyses that examine overlaps and differences between ES and NRS.

Survey Sample
Table 1 outlines key characteristics of survey respondents.Our sample is largely balanced with respect to gender composition and the distribution of present position categories.Approximately four out of five respondents were associated with various types of universities or colleges, mostly public research universities (65.5%).Nearly one-half of the 345 respondents from the U.S. indicated they worked at land grant universities.A variety of disciplines were represented in respondents' academic departments or professional sectors, with the highest percentages in sociology or rural sociology (27.2% sociology; 8.0% rural sociology) and natural resources, forestry, wildlife, or fisheries (18.3%).Most survey respondents (63.7%) earned their degrees after 2010.More than half of respondents (54.8%) lived in the U.S. at the time of survey, but there was substantial participation from China, Canada, and Indonesia. 2Overall, 52 countries or areas were represented.

Scholars' Identities
We first examined how scholars in these subfields identified themselves professionally and what factors might contribute to variation and change in their identification.The largest numbers of respondents self-reported their academic identities as "other" (e.g., rural sociologists, conservation social scientists; 27.9%), environmental social scientists (25.9%), or environmental sociologists (25.2%) (see Table 1).About one in ten identified, respectively, as natural resource social scientists (11.1%) and either natural resource sociologists (2.5%) or environmental and natural resource sociologists (7.3%), or what we subsequently refer to as the subgroup of "environmental and resource sociology" (ERS) scholars (9.8%). 3These scholarly identities, however, are somewhat fluid, more so for some groups than others.About two-fifths of respondents (41.2%) had not always held the same academic identity.Compared to those who identified as environmental or natural resource social scientists, relatively larger proportions of both ES and ERS respondents reported unchanged intellectual identities.Identities also reflect the training received and are associated with how scholars train their own students.Larger proportions of respondents were trained and trained students in ES (29.6%; 26.7%) or ES and NRS (31.1%; 26.7%) than in NRS (8.3%; 3.9%).A majority of ES respondents were trained or trained their students only in ES (64.6%; 68.4%), whereas most ERS respondents involved both subdisciplines in their own education and student training (67.7%; 66.1%).Only 17.1% of ES respondents reported having been exposed to NRS.In each of the other subgroups, most participants reported that ES or NRS was relevant to their training and mentoring experiences.
One of our interests is to see to what extent these terms resonate with scholars in different geographic contexts.For instance, we might expect to see identification with NRS mostly or exclusively among respondents from the U.S. since this subfield is largely grounded in American land grant universities.As Figure 1 shows, the proportion of U.S.-based respondents identifying with NRS/ERS was relatively larger than the proportion of respondents from other countries identifying with these labels, while the proportion identifying as ES among U.S.-based respondents was smaller.

Comparing ES and ERS Subgroups
Next, we analyzed how respondents' personal characteristics and research practices might vary across different categories.Most descriptive results in this section present overall results and then focus on comparing two particular subgroups: those who identified with solely ES (n ¼ 159) and the combined group ERS (n ¼ 62), which includes those who solely identified as NRS scholars (n ¼ 16) and those who identified with both ES and NRS (n ¼ 46).We are mindful that together these groups account for just over one-third of respondents (35.0%).Clearly, it would be worthwhile to further explore the perspectives and experiences of the broad range of environmental and natural resource social science scholars surveyed.Nonetheless, as this study centers on the relationships between ES and NRS, we focus on the subsets of ES and ERS respondents to inform that dialogue (see SOM 02 for detailed results pertaining to ES, ERS, and other participants).

Personal Characteristics
The ES subsample had larger proportions of graduate students (15.2%) and assistant professors (24.1%) than the ERS subsample (9.7% and 14.5%, respectively).In comparison with ERS respondents, relatively higher proportions of ES respondents were at academic institutions, particularly private colleges and universities.Among the participants who lived in the U.S., those who identified as ERS scholars were more likely than ES respondents to work in land grant universities (78.0% vs. 36.1%).Most ES participants (72.2%) were located in sociology departments, while ERS respondents were mainly in sociology (33.9%), rural sociology (19.4%), and natural resources-related departments (17.7%).The subjects of ES and ERS respondents' highest educational degrees also largely show this pattern.
People earlier in their careers more frequently identified as ES and less frequently as ERS.Compared to the ES subgroup, the ERS subsample included a relatively higher proportion of scholars who earned their highest degrees during 1965-2000 (23.7% vs. 16.0%)but a lower percentage with degree years in 2011-2015 (15.3% vs. 24.7%).The two subgroups were quite similar with respect to gender composition: each had a small majority of male respondents (ES: 58.9%; ERS: 54.8%).Most of the ES participants were from the U.S. (46.8%) and China (27.2%), while the rest were distributed almost evenly between the subgroups of other developing (12.0%) and developed countries (13.9%).In contrast, a majority of ERS participants were from the U.S. (66.1%), followed by China (16.1%) and other developing countries (16.1%).Not surprisingly, ES respondents mainly learned about the survey through the SES of the ASA (41.5%), while the top survey information sources for ERS respondents were the NRRIG of the RSS (41.9%) and the IASNR (38.7%).

Research Practices
The top three research topics across the whole sample are (1) attitudes, behaviors and/ or practices (33.9%); (2) climate change adaptation, mitigation and consequences (24.7%); and (3) food and agriculture (18.2%).These three areas were also among the top selections for both the ES and ERS subgroups.Other major research interests of ES respondents included environmental justice (21.4%) and governance, policy, and/or regulation (18.2%), while ERS respondents frequently reported community-based natural resource management (33.9%) and water/watershed management (19.4%) as their main research foci.
Overall, the most frequent level of analysis identified by respondents was community (44.5%), followed by nation-state (23.0%) and subnational region (21.4%).Nevertheless, comparisons of the ES and ERS categories showed clear differences (Figure 2).Nearly two-thirds of ERS respondents (64.5%) selected community as a major level of analysis, compared to 40.3% for ES respondents.For ERS respondents, about one-fourth each selected county and subnational region.Among ES respondents, 30.2% chose nationstate, and between 14.5% and 21.4% identified each of county, state, subnational region, municipality or city, and cross-national levels.Rates for county, state, and subnational region were higher for ERS respondents.Similar percentages of both subsamples indicated global as the primary level of analysis (ES: 12.6%; ERS: 11.3%).These patterns suggest overall differences between the two groups-but also appreciable overlaps.
Compared to ERS respondents, a higher proportion of ES respondents (21.4% vs. 8.1%) indicated that the main geographic setting of their research was metropolitan/ urban.Over two-thirds of ERS respondents (67.7%) chose "nonmetropolitan/rural" as their main research setting, contrasting with 29.6% among ES respondents.ES respondents indicated both rural and urban equally much more often than ERS respondents (42.1% vs. 22.6%).
Most respondents across the full sample indicated that their research had an emphasis on social theory (71.1% somewhat or strongly agree) and on solving environmental or resource management problems (81.1% somewhat or strongly agree), as well as a clear interdisciplinary orientation (89.1% somewhat or strongly agree).Despite the common assumption that ES uses theory more often and that ERS work is more applied, there was not a large difference between ES and ERS respondents regarding emphasis on theory (74.7% and 69.4% somewhat or strongly agree, respectively).Nevertheless, ES scholars less commonly indicated an emphasis on problem solving (72.8%) than ERS scholars (85.5%).There was also a modest difference in reported interdisciplinary commitment between ES (82.3%) and ERS respondents (88.3%).The top three disciplinary backgrounds of respondents' collaborators overall were natural resources and related fields (40.7%), geography (38.4%), and sociology (38.2%).The most common disciplinary background of collaborators for ES respondents was sociology (57.9%).For ERS respondents, it was in natural resources-related fields (59.7%).While sociology was among the disciplines from which ERS scholars' collaborators primarily came (43.5%),ES researchers' most frequent selections did not include natural resources (20.8%) or rural sociology (24.5%).In their collaborations, ERS respondents more commonly crossed disciplinary boundaries. The

Perspectives on ES-NRS Relationships
Respondents were asked about their awareness of differences between the subfields, how they saw the differences manifesting, where they saw overlaps, perceived causes of differences, and, finally, their preferred ES-NRS trajectory and opportunities for bridging or integrating.Not surprisingly, 92.8% of the respondents were aware of at least one (more commonly ES) or both of the two subfields before participating in the survey.The ERS and natural resource social science categories exhibited the highest percentages of participants cognizant of both subdisciplines (see Table 2).Over three-fifths of the survey sample (62.3%) also reported a moderate or high level of knowledge about the dialogue between ES and NRS.A majority of those who were somewhat or very aware of this dialogue (63.7%) agreed that there were clear distinctions between the two research traditions.Nevertheless, considerable proportions of all respondents did not know about the ES-NRS discussion (37.7%)and disagreed on (15.0%) or were not sure about their distinctions (41.4%).Overall, ERS participants were more aware of the ES-NRS dialogue and more assertive about the distinctions between the two subdisciplines than respondents in the ES and other subgroups (see Table 2).
For the full sample, the most commonly perceived ES-NRS differences were in theoretical orientation (41.5%), intellectual and institutional origins (40.1%), and the level of policy relevance (30.3%).Between 31.4% and 55.0% of respondents indicated ES-NRS overlaps in theoretical frameworks, academic and professional organizations, research methodology, cross-boundary scholars, and research problems, respectively.Overall, ERS respondents indicated higher levels of identification with listed differences and similarities between the two subdisciplines than ES and other respondents (see Table 2).
The most commonly identified cause of the ES-NRS divergence was the difference in institutional roots and histories (40.6%), followed by different vocational characteristics of practitioners (29.0%), lack of initiatives to synthesize environmental and natural resource sociologies (27.1%), lack of awareness of the dialogue between the two subdisciplines (26.6%), and lack of knowledge about the other subdiscipline (19.3%).The ES and ERS subsamples showed relatively higher levels of agreement with possible causes stated in the survey than the other subgroups (see Table 2).
A majority of respondents (65.4%) were supportive of developing more ES-NRS synergies or even integrating these two subdisciplines into a field of environmental and resource sociology.Interestingly, ERS respondents demonstrated more support for merging the two subdisciplines or keeping them distinct than those in the ES and other subgroups (see Table 2).At least one-third of all respondents indicated agreement that each of the following could be an opportunity for better bridging or integrating ES and NRS: (1) increasing research collaborations at individual and organizational levels (44.4%); (2) incorporating both ES and NRS in the training of future scholars (43.6%);Notes: Many of the questions in Section 4 (Perspectives) of the survey were mostly applicable to participants who were at least somewhat aware of the ES-NRS dialogue.The percentages of respondents choosing relevant answer items for Questions 3-8 would be higher if we had only selected this subsample for analysis.
(3) developing shared, comprehensive theoretical models or conceptual frameworks (39.0%); and (4) extending the ES-NRS dialogue beyond the U.S. context (33.9%).These items were generally also the most favored across all respondent subgroups.The question discussed immediately above, as well as the open-ended question about potential ES-NRS convergence areas that followed, likely pushed respondents in the direction of bringing the fields together.This led many respondents to offer avenues for synthesis.For example, an environmental sociologist based in Canada noted the potential for synthetic work in areas like food systems research to bridge ES urban-consumption and NRS rural-production orientations.Topics multiple respondents mentioned as promising points of convergence include climate change, environmental governance, environmental justice, environmental attitudes and behaviors, energy, community, risk and disaster, land use, and learning from political ecology.Nevertheless, respondents also expressed a wide range of views on the significance of ES-NRS distinctions and whether it is best to dissolve, retain, or accentuate them (see SOM 03 for a summary of open-ended responses).

Discussion
Some NRS and ES scholars, particularly in the U.S., have engaged in extensive reflection and dialogue about the relationships and directions of these two areas of scholarship.To get a stronger sense of the attributes and trajectories of scholars in these subfields, we have taken a quantitative empirical approach that builds upon recent smaller scale qualitative research focused on early career scholars (Ulrich-Schad and Givens 2020).Major themes and patterns identified in previous studies on the sociology of environmental and resource sociology helped us construct our survey that was aimed at more broadly and deeply examining these issues.Survey results show persisting distinctions between environmental and natural resource sociologies, but also lots of overlaps and a range of views regarding the significance of these distinctions.Understanding these evolving differences and similarities may facilitate better cooperation and lead to more fruitful theoretical and applied outcomes.It also helps to clarify some misconceptions about the orientations and tendencies of scholars identifying with specific subfields.
Results show that many ES-NRS distinctions raised in earlier work (e.g., Buttel 2002, Field, Luloff, andKrannich 2002) still largely hold up, but there is more congruence between the two subdisciplines than typically conceived.Theoretical, practical, and interdisciplinary orientations are among the major ES-NRS distinctions suggested in previous studies.Respondents' perceptions of the differences between ES and NRS also generally echoed these broad patterns.Nevertheless, large majorities in both ES and ERS groups reported that their work emphasized theory, problem-solving, and interdisciplinary research.Additionally, notwithstanding noticeable differences between the ES and ERS subsamples, nearly three quarters of ERS respondents identified with both environmental and natural resource sociologies.All these similarities and overlaps bode well for developing synergies across research traditions.
The roots of NRS are in rural sociology work centered in U.S. land grant institutions, and this legacy has been central to the dialogue between ES and NRS (Buttel 1996;Field, Luloff, and Krannich 2002).ES has different genealogies in the U.S., Europe, China, and elsewhere (Lidskog, Mol, and Oosterveer 2015;Qin et al. 2023b;Zinda, Li, and Liu 2018).Compared to other respondents, U.S.-based respondents more frequently identified with ERS.Further analysis of respondents' perspectives on ES-NRS relationships also showed that survey participants from the U.S. were more commonly aware of the intellectual exchanges between the two subdisciplines, while the ES and NRS lineages were less salient for more recent degree cohorts across all countries.This finding largely aligns with the increasing ES-NRS connections identified in an updated bibliometric analysis emphasizing earlier career practitioners in environmental and resource sociology (Qin et al. 2023a).
We sought to cast our nets wide to reach people in ES and NRS, focusing on organizations and fora in which they commonly participate.Of those who responded, only 35.0% identified with ES, NRS, or both.In the U.S., where discussions about ES and NRS appear to be most relevant, they accounted for 33.3% of the sample.While these labels mattered for most sociologists and sociology-adjacent social scientists in this survey, many participants did not self-identify with either category.The most common response was that a respondent's self-identification was not included in the list.This suggests that a conversation limited to the terms ES and NRS does not fully reflect the experiences even of a sample of people we might expect to be much invested in these areas.We have focused on building on existing discussions about environmental and natural resource sociologies, but in a world of increasingly interdisciplinary and problem-oriented environmental scholarship, we may do well to go beyond these two categories-a point raised in previous studies (Belsky 2002;Rosa and Machlis 2002;Zinda 2020) and also echoed by some open-ended responses in the survey.
This survey has several limitations in systematically addressing the intersection of environmental and natural resource sociologies.We believe our sampling frame represents the best feasible attempt at reaching the population relevant for examining ES-NRS relationships.Nonetheless, responses are clearly imbalanced, with underrepresentation of participants outside the U.S. and China. 4Our survey design might also have a bias toward identifying greater convergence than we might see if we took a bibliometric or in-depth qualitative approach.The overlaps on general approaches may mask substantive differences in specific research practices.For example, even if both utilize theory, ES and NRS scholars-and clusters within each-often engage with different conversations and use theory in different ways.We have worked to take such biases into account and to make use of openended responses in interpreting quantitative results.Given some limitations of this effort, future research should strive to reach more representative samples and avoid categories and statements that might be polarizing in order to elicit more diverse perspectives and insights.

Concluding Remarks
This first ES-NRS survey study will likely not be the last word on the sociology of environmental and resource sociology.We authors differ in our identifications and our views on where ES, NRS, and allied realms of inquiry should go.Despite the established thread of research on the evolution of both subfields, there are still mixed views on the value of studying ES-NRS relationships.An appreciable number of respondents, mostly scholars from outside the U.S., or who were trained in other disciplines than sociology, even questioned the premises of our survey.Overall, we believe the results of this study provide empirical evidence that the ES-NRS dialogue continues to matter in research on society-environment interactions.Previous discussions on this topic have always focused on critical and constructive reflections on ingrained research paradigms rather than boundary drawing and policing.This effort to map out individual scholars' perspectives on environmental and natural resource sociologies has given us much to reflect on about our own engagement within and across these subdisciplines.We hope it will develop mutual understanding and stimulate further interactions among colleagues of all persuasions.Notes 1.A copy of the survey instrument can be found in Supplementary Online Material (SOM) 01. 2. Authors had research and professional networks in China and Indonesia, which likely explain the relatively high levels of participation from those countries.3.Those who identified as environmental and natural resource sociologists were combined for analysis with those who identified as solely natural resource sociologists as their responses showed similar patterns.4. Respondents from China also showed a high level of awareness of the dialogue between environmental and natural resource sociologies and tended to consider their distinctions rather salient.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Primary levels of analysis of ES and ERS respondents.

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International Association for Society and Natural Resources (IASNR) � Section on Environmental Sociology (SES) of the American Sociological Association (ASA) � Natural Resources Research and Interest Group (NRRIG) of the RSS � RC24 Environment and Society of the International Sociological Association � Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society � Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences � Social Science Working Group of the Society for Conservation Biology � Population-Environment Research Network � Specialized Committee on Environmental Sociology of the Chinese Sociological Association � International Symposium on Environmental Sociology in East Asia

Table 2 .
Comparisons of perspectives on ES-NRS relationships across different subgroups.